Death Touch: Lords of Shifters, #4

from me to you

Dear Reader,

Thank you. If you’re reading this, you’ve read the first three stories in the Lords of Shifters series. I thank you for continuing this journey with me by reading Death Touch.

I wrote the first book in the Lords of Shifters series in 2008. It was published as Loramendi’s Story in 2011. Spider Wars and Dark Horse soon followed in 2012 and 2013. Then the series stalled. It was going in a direction I hadn’t planned and the ending wasn’t clear to me, so in 2014 I took the books down from all distribution sites.

Over several months, I reworked Loramendi’s Story and republished the books in 2015. There are new scenes and deleted scenes, but if you read the books prior to 2015, you don’t need to read them again (unless you need a refresher since it’s taken me so long).

If you have the pre-2015 books, please know one major change in Loramendi’s Story: Aubrey leaves White Salmon while Loramendi is going through her change and right after Johnnie shoots the bear while hiking with Lora. All scenes with Aubrey after this point have been deleted. As far as Loramendi knows, Aubrey left on her own.

Thank you, again! I hope you enjoy reading Death Touch.

XOXO

Angela

Death Touch

A Lords of Shifters Novel

by

Angela Carlie

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Journal Entry: November 1st

I know you, he said.

She looked up from her writing at the boy who stood next to the wooden table. He towered over her, gazing at her. Not at her cherry red journal or her purple ink pen or the blond braids that dangled over her shoulders, but at her. Her eyes.

She gazed back for a while. It was only a brief moment, this gaze, but to the girl it was a while. Her mother could have washed a load of laundry in that while. Her brother could have played a game of soccer. Her father could have changed the oil in their family Suburban.

But she didn’t have a mother or a brother or a father. Everyone she knew was dead.

She had a journal and a pen to write this story, none of which this boy with dark wispy hair, a square jaw, and clear blue eyes cared to gaze at.

She committed this moment to memory. She knew it was significant. Her abdominal muscles tensed with anticipation for unknown reasons. It was a turning point in her life.

The low murmur of conversation surrounding the two came back to focus, along with the clamor of stirring, steam swooshing, and fingers tapping on keyboards, and the scents of coffee and pastries.

She had never met this boy before. His skin was sun-kissed. He wore surfer shorts and flip-flops. His eyes were kind. His hands were strong.

He was a prince who appeared from a magical land to rescue this orphaned girl who wrote in a journal. She wrote of her dreams, her ghostly mother, and stories of such fairy tale things. He came to take her far away from the burdens of reality, from death and destruction, from friends who lied, from human life. Or to try, at least.

He came to make her a princess.

She wanted to play along, to tell him she knew him as well, and to fall deeply in love with him. His spell was broken when she glanced at the purple cursive words she had written.

Actually, she said, I don’t know you. And I’m not a princess.

PART I

Aubrey’s Winter

Aubrey

Past

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She stood tall and brave while the men struggled with the noose around her neck.

The gray, damp air clung to the open field where the townspeople stood to watch around the old oak tree. Aubrey’s mother wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of knowing that what they were doing bothered her in the slightest. They were nothing. Scum. Humans, afraid of everything that went bump in the night.

But Mother didn’t go bump in the night. Those trivial scares bowed down to her. The night would too if it could. Humans had every right to be frightened. If she wanted to cause harm, pitter-pattering on the roof of the house or creaking floorboards weren’t her thing. Skinning men alive, pulling teeth out one by one, or slow, painful deaths by poison were her expertise.

She didn’t play games, though. Not unless the person deserved it, and a person had to do something pretty awful to get her angry enough to spend her precious time on him. Seconds, minutes, hours, she said once, days... Don’t let anyone take your time from you. Don’t waste it, Aubrey. You can’t buy any more.

Now Aubrey knew what she meant.

Her mother’s time was up.

Mr. Butler, a burly middle-aged man who owned an apple orchard on the edge of town, pulled the rope tight around Mother’s neck with his fat, dirty fingers. Mr. Martin tied extra knots in cuffs holding her hands behind her back.

Mother’s black eyes bore down at Aubrey, who stayed hidden in the brush, close to the damp soil where beetles scurried along and slugs slithered, while she watched the horror unfold before her.

If only she had her mother’s spell book.

If only she’d paid more attention when her mother tried to teach her the ways of magic. Her jaw clenched and she held onto the tears and the urge to rush out of her hiding place to save her mother. There wasn’t anything she could do. This scenario had played itself out in Aubrey’s nightmares for as long as she could remember. Whenever Aubrey spoke of this to her mother, she always told her the same thing: Men fear what they do not understand. One day soon, they will kill me. One day, you may witness this murder, but you must promise me this: you will not intervene. You will stay safe.

Did Mother want to die? Why hadn’t she left the towns a long time ago, moved to the mountains where no one would be around to suspect such things as witchcraft or magic? Perhaps before she was trying to scare her only child, Aubrey had always thought, never for one moment thinking Mother’s words would ever come true. That her nightmares would escape into the day.

But escape they did. And the day they entered was cold and damp. The air was thick with moisture, but it wasn’t a full-on rain, more like an icy steam bath that clung to everything from bare tree branches, yellow grass, and Aubrey’s dark hair dragging in the dirt.

Mother’s pale skin turned rosy along her cheekbones and on the tip of her nose. Aubrey always thought she was beautiful, but she thought this even more on wintry days, when snowflakes would rest in her dark hair and the frost would kiss her cheeks. Her skin came alive with color. Her laugh was equally bright as they’d roll in the clean fluff and throw snowballs at one another.

Now Mother looked so resigned, willing to accept this awful and unfair fate. Why didn’t she fight? She was a powerful sorcerer. She knew the most horrible spells, how to boil a man’s flesh with a simple snap of her finger, how to break a man’s arm with a nod of her head. Aubrey had witnessed her anger toward unfaithful lovers and men who threatened her freedom before.

Those times were years ago, though. When Aubrey wasn’t old enough to understand why men came to their door in the middle of the night and left at dawn. But now she understood. Aubrey understood that she must have been hurt by love once. Maybe even more than once. Perhaps by her own father because she never knew him, and Mother never spoke of him and forbade Aubrey to ask about him.

The men who came to their house almost always left with a smile, unless they didn’t leave at all. But if they stayed, they didn’t have a beating heart for long.

Maybe Mother was tired. So weary of fighting whatever she had going on inside of that wisp of a body. She’d become so frail those last few months. She looked so defenseless, so sad up there next to the tree, waiting to die.

Aubrey couldn’t recall the last time she’d told her mother she loved her. She couldn’t remember the last time she hugged her. Had she ever done those things? Yes, she must have, when she was little.

She wanted to tell her now, to run out into the field, away from the safety of her hiding spot, and shout to her mother, I love you! To hold her as tight as she could and never let her go.

Wanting and doing are very different. Fear, or maybe it was the promise Aubrey made her mother, kept her planted in the soil with the creepers and crawlers. What good would it do, Aubrey leaping out into the open? They’d both die, then.

But did she want to live without her, all alone?

A man in a dark cloak held an open book in his hands. He read it aloud for everyone to listen. Aubrey didn’t hear a word he said, though. A prayer from the Bible, no doubt.

Mother’s eyes emptied and wandered to the ground below her, her head going limp. Her filthy skirt drug through the mud as they guided her closer to a ladder propped up against the tree.

They stopped before climbing the first rung.

Aubrey held her breath.

Amen, the man said.

Amen, the people repeated.

She was done. There’s no way to explain the ache that filled Aubrey at that moment. The sixteen years of memories she had of her mother flooded her head. Mother laughing in the snow. Mother screaming at her current lover, arguing, throwing things at him, and then him collapsed on the floor. Mother tickling Aubrey on one of their morning adventures to collect fireflies and large toads mating in the swamps. Mother always winning, never giving in to defeat. Mother pulling the legs off spiders and the wings off flies to throw in a pot over the fire. Mother laughing again when Aubrey asked her with disdain if they were going to eat the stew with the spider legs and fly wings.

Don’t be ridiculous, she had said. This is for someone with the mumps. You don’t have mumps, do you?

Aubrey hadn’t known what the mumps were, but she never, ever wanted them after that.

In her spot close to the ground, beneath the ferns, Aubrey whimpered. It wasn’t very loud. Just a small gasp of air vibrating over vocal chords, but she heard it, sounding all pitiful, like an abandoned puppy.

Mother’s head moved. She looked at Aubrey, her lips quivering, a tear slipping down her cheek.

A tear.

Mother never cried.

At that moment, Aubrey felt her mother’s hopelessness with this life, her need to let go, to be done with this world and everything in it. Even me? Aubrey thought. Hadn’t Aubrey brought her joy? Why couldn’t she be reason enough for her mother to not give up on this place?

Mother’s sad gaze then moved from Aubrey’s face to something behind Aubrey. Mother went rigid, her eyes stern.

Aubrey turned to see what caused her alarm. Bark from the evergreen she was butted up against, green ferns bowing to the ground under the weight of moisture, tree limbs and branches littering the ground. Nothing out of place.

Mother struggled. Her arms wiggled to gain freedom from their bonds, and she attempted to run toward Aubrey, dragging the rope around her neck behind her and tripping over her long skirt.

Now, don’t make this difficult. Mr. Butler caught her arm and picked her up like a child and threw her over his shoulder. She kicked her boots to no avail.

Aubrey’s eyes burned, holding on to a reservoir of tears until they spilled down her cheeks. Mother was afraid after all. Aubrey always thought she had no fears. That she would laugh in the face of death and spit on the man who tried to take her life away.

Or maybe ... she wasn’t afraid. Panic rushed through Aubrey’s veins. Maybe she changed her mind. She wanted to live. She hadn’t given up!

Aubrey jumped to her feet.

With Mother’s legs flailing and her arms punching, Mr. Butler dragged her up the ladder next to the oak tree.

Run, Aubrey! Run! Mother screamed hysterically.

And Aubrey did, but not in the direction Mother meant.

Aubrey ran with every ounce of strength she had straight for the small group of humans gathered around the oak tree in the middle of an open field to watch the witch die.

She ran to save her mother.

Aubrey 2

Quick! Grab her hands! a man shouted from somewhere near the bystanders.

Hide! a woman’s voice screamed. She’ll kill us all!

Adrenaline crashed through Aubrey’s body. Every muscle burned as she surged forward to reach her mother.

Mr. Butler struggled with the noose around Mother’s neck and finally secured it to the branch once again. Wind whipped her black hair in every direction, smacking Mr. Butler in the face over and over again. Mother’s dark eyes rolled back into her head.

Her hands came free from their bindings.

With her fingers splayed, she lifted an invisible force out to her sides.

Aubrey was almost there. Nobody tried to stop her because they were running for their lives. Only Mr. Butler and a handful of men stayed to see Mother’s hanging through, and they struggled to keep the ladder upright.

Mother wasn’t fighting them physically, but Aubrey knew it was only a matter of moments before the men’s hearts would stop beating.

Dried leaves and branches from the sleeping tree flung through the air. Nothing hit Aubrey, though. In fact, she seemed to be in a protective bubble, because even her hair didn’t blow around. She pushed forward, her legs burning from the effort, but remained almost there, never reaching the tree. She looked around. The trampled brown grass didn’t move beneath her running feet. Mud caked around her boots as they wore holes into the ground.

No, Mother! she cried. Please let me help you! Her voice was swallowed by the storm of energy typhooning around them.

Mother’s hands were nearly above her head now. Her body was rigid and she floated an inch above the third rung from the top of the ladder.

Mr. Butler screamed first. His round body fell and thudded onto the soft debris below him. He squirmed, his limbs crawling to escape the pain he felt, and his skin bubbled and boiled on his red face.

Two other men followed suit.

A gangly-looking boy bolted away. He tripped over his